


The Tempest of Shadows

by rowaelinsmut



Category: Throne of Glass Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Dark Magic, Death, Demons, F/M, Heavy Angst, Magic, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 05:17:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15599124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowaelinsmut/pseuds/rowaelinsmut
Summary: Aelin and Rowan are summoned by Maeve and are forced to face two unlikely faces from their pasts.





	The Tempest of Shadows

Thunder shook the ground beneath Aelin’s feet while flashes of lightning streaked across the sky, the rain so heavy she could scarcely see ten feet in front of her and the only thing that kept her grounded was Rowan’s unyielding presence next to her. 

Aelin was soaked to the bone, her fire keeping her and Rowan warm enough to trudge through the sodden fields as they followed the surge of ancient, dark power that had called out to them specifically. 

“It’s probably a trap,” Aelin called over the rolling claps of thunder.

“It’s Maeve, of course it’s a trap. It will be one we don’t see coming.” Rowan called back, throwing up a hard shield of wind in an attempt to provide some shelter from the howling winds whipping around them as they neared their final destination.

It worked - marginally - but both Rowan and Aelin had decided to refrain from using their magic as much as possible while they sought out the wicked thrumming of the Dark Queen’s summons. Not that their reserves couldn’t handle it given that they were both fully replenished and hovering around the bottom of their respective magics. Aelin and Rowan were more than ready to begin the ascent, to drag all that power up from the unholy caches they were either gifted or cursed with, but both were refraining from releasing too much to save every last possible drop for when Maeve revealed the trap she had laid.

Rowan, of course, could control and stop the wind with half a thought but Aelin knew Rowan was already on edge because he had been unable to convince Aelin to stay back. But the tug that drew them away from the rest of their court had been keyed for them, both of them and Aelin wouldn’t - no, couldn’t let Rowan go alone.

Their promise was to whatever end. She would sooner die than betray that promise again.

The wind picked up as they came upon the centre of the storm, the rain pelting harmlessly but furiously against Rowan’s unwavering shield. “Had I known she wanted us to go to the centre of the storm, I would have brought a parasol.”

Aelin didn’t have to look towards her mate to know he was cringing at her piss-poor attempt at humour, not when she could hear the grinding of his teeth with her enhanced Fae hearing.

“Now is not the time, Aelin,” he warned, gesturing to the thick barrier of swirling black two feet ahead of them.

The throbbing of power was strongest just beyond the depthless veil, the call of what was to greet them almost unbearable to ignore.

“Rowan-”

“I feel it, too.”

There was a phantom, piercing pain lancing through her limbs and given Rowan’s furrowed brows, he was experiencing the same phenomenon.

“She really wants us in there.” Aelin gasped, trying to muster any sense of bravado while she pressed a hand against the old scar where Dorian had once stabbed her in the glass castle. 

“Every old scar I have is burning, Aelin.” His pine-green eyes were wide with panic when Aelin turned to face him, her face pale and drawn as each of her own scars lit on fire.

Her voice shook as she reached for him. “I don’t think we can turn back. It’s Maeve, right? All of this, the storm, the pain, it’s her doing.”

Rowan nodded, fingers lacing between her own, face blanching as the pain of every old, healed wound assaulted his body. Aelin cried out as the scars on her back seared, as if she was once more being whipped again, as if every line on her back from Cairn and the overseer of Endovier ripped open.

“We have to cross,” Rowan pulled Aelin towards him, but every touch felt like the shattering of bones, his words broken and unsteady with the effort. “The barrier, we have to cross. Whatever magic this is will kill us otherwise. Aelin-”

“Together, Rowan, we’ll go together.”

“I have to drop my shield. Hold onto me.” 

“I’m ready.”

The moment the shield dropped, Aelin’s hair whipped free of her braid and the rain pelted them but Rowan was tugging Aelin’s hand, roaring something she couldn’t quite make out over the deafening storm but she understood all the same and together they crossed the inky black threshold.

~.~.~

There was silence after they stepped through, and that was sunlight shining through Aelin’s closed eyelids. The pain had vanished the moment they crossed and Aelin relished the feel of her body, no longer aching and burning but she still felt raw. It was as though all the emotional pain she had overcome had resurfaced with every pain on every scar she had.

“Rowan,” she croaked desperately, opening her eyes and searching for him. He was on his knees a couple of feet away from her and she almost cried out with relief. His normally golden skin was pale and she could only guess that her own had leached of colour as well. But he was alive. 

He was safe.

“Where are we?” Rowan asked, scrambling unsteadily and uncharacteristically to his feet before he came to her to pull her up with him.

Aelin looked around, confusion and uncertainty washing over her. “I have no idea. What did she do?” Aelin trailed off as she noticed two figures approaching. Even with her Fae sight, she couldn’t make out their features from so far away.

Were they friend or foe?

Rowan had tensed beside her before he moved to step in front of her, assessing the possible threat. Aelin side-stepped him, stomach dropping as the figures drew closer. She knew the gait of the man, it was as familiar as her own. From when she was Celaena.

From when she was an assassin.

Sam.

Rowan’s own choked gasp tore from his throat and Aelin then knew who accompanied Sam Cortland. Even though she had never seen her before, the dark haired Fae woman at Sam’s side was inexplicably Lyria.

Aelin fell to her knees with a strangled sob.

The two figures stopped before them, each wearing a cold, inhuman smile, lacking all warmth. Nothing like the Sam that Aelin had known and loved. And by Rowan’s preternatural stillness, the female before him only resembled Lyria by looks alone.

It was impossible.

“How,” Aelin rasped, clutching at Rowan to pull herself back up on shaking legs.

Sam cocked his head at her, nothing natural in the movement and it was then, when the sun glinted off the wyrdstone collar that Aelin realised the gravity of their situation. There was a matching one across Lyria’s pale throat, so ugly and abhorrent in comparison to the flawless flesh it marred.

“Hello, Rowan,” Lyria said, her voice was musical and lovely. Everything about her was lovely. But Rowan appeared to be in shock. Unable to react in the face of the female he had once loved. Had almost had a child with.

“Celaena, would you believe I’m whole again? Look at me, I’m exactly as I was before Rourke ruined me.”

Aelin shuddered, the voice she had so desperately craved to hear for so long was nothing like she remembered. It was cruel and ancient. It was of the valg. “It’s not real, Rowan, look at me. They’re not real.” Aelin pleaded, tugging at the sleeve of Rowan’s tunic.

Rowan looked towards her, but she could tell he wasn’t truly seeing her. 

“I said, look at me!” The valg prince inside Sam screamed as it’s dark power slammed into Aelin.

She screamed. The agony of the darkness so familiar, so painful. It was exactly as she remembered but now it wore the face of one she loved so fiercely before. It was worse. So much worse. But then it broke and there was temporary relief.

Lyria lunged for Rowan the same moment Sam came for Aelin and it was only then, a moment before Lyria made contact that Rowan snapped out of the trance she had lost him momentarily to.

Even though Aelin knew it killed Rowan to do so, he deflected Lyria’s blows and began to fight back. He seemed to realise it wasn’t her; to know that it wore her face but was not the female he had failed to protect so long ago.

Aelin had but a moment to ensure Rowan was present before the demon in Sam’s body lurched for her.

She dodged his raised fists nimbly, landing a punch to his gut that hardly phased or slowed him down. The next punch crunched against Aelin’s jaw, the force behind it so powerful that her teeth rattled.

Aelin snarled, jaw aching and nose trickling blood from the impact before she reached for a dagger from her belt and plunged it into Sam’s chest. The demon paused, examining the blade protruding from its chest in almost feral glee. Aelin sneered at the creature in disgust, mentally pulling the behemoth that was her power from the depths of hell itself to give it life.

“Shield!” Aelin roared to Rowan, no longer content to let the mind-games of Maeve rule her sensibilities. Sam was dead, Lyria was dead. This was all a sick ploy to shatter them both.

Aelin would not stand for it.

Out of the corner of her eye, Aelin saw Rowan shove Lyria away from him and felt the hard shield wrap around herself. Sam and Lyria both felt the rumbling of the world beneath them as Aelin’s call for power was answered. Rowan took a step back, palming a dagger she hadn’t seen him grab before he sliced his hand and offered the dagger to Aelin.

She took it and sliced into her own palm. The dagger clattered to the grass.

“Finish this, Fireheart.”

Rowan’s words were laboured, emotional. It was too much to see their faces after all this time. To see their failures brought back to life and dangled in front of them. To see their once beautiful bodies made a mockery of. 

Maeve would pay for every bit of this torment.

Aelin grasped Rowan’s hands and felt the brute force of Rowan’s power slam into her. Her knees buckled under the pressure but Rowan held true.

Aelin’s power lit the clearing on fire, burning everything in its wake. She directed it towards the two dark forms several feet away from her, trying to flee the magic that would end them.

The screams tearing from Sam splintered Aelin’s heart. Every octave it rose as her fire engulfed that beautiful body another knife in her heart.

Every scream from Lyria had Rowan’s knees buckling, as though he was finally being forced to witness the end he never prevented all those years ago, but he never faltered and it gave Aelin the courage to burn until both Sam and Lyria’s bodies were but ash on the wind and the valg who had infested their reanimated bodies were destroyed beyond repair.

She burned long after that.

Let the evidence of what occured here be reduced to nothing more than memory. If Aelin could cleanse Rowan and herself of the thoughts that would now haunt them after today, she would have. But she burned and burned until Rowan called to her, the voice of her mate soothing and bringing her back to the world surrounding them.

Her flames winked out, nowhere near depleted but tempered enough that when they vanished, the edge Aelin had been riding had been satisfied. Rowan pulled her close and together they collapsed to the ground, both shaking and rattled but miraculously unharmed.

After several long moments of only silence, their words unable to offer the comforts and affirmations their shared embrace could, Aelin looked up and around to view her surroundings.

They were perhaps, only one hundred feet from their war camp and already she could spot Lysandra in ghost leopard form racing towards them both with Aedion sprinting after her.

Aelin could scarcely begin to deduce what Maeve had done, where she had transported them and the magic she had wielded to bring Lyria and Sam back in order to insert the valg into them. The only facts she could focus on was that she was an emotional wasteland after the encounter. The devastation was reflected in Rowan’s face and he only leaned forward to kiss her forehead, knowing he would not have the opportunity to take care of her like she needed, hell like he needed to after such horrors.

Just as Lys and Aedion reached the ashy plains around them and before they could begin to demand what the storm was, where it went, where they went and what the hell happened, a single note fluttered to the ground next to where Aelin and Rowan’s knees met.

Rowan tensed as he scanned the handwriting, recognising it as Maeve’s but allowed Aelin to pluck the note from the ground to read it aloud. Aelin snorted, but her gut clenched at the threat she found and then offered the paper to Rowan.

It only had three words. But Aelin knew she would have to prepare for the fight of her life.

“I am coming.”


End file.
